


Numbers

by Return009



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Matchmaking, Side Alex/Sara, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:22:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24391246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Return009/pseuds/Return009
Summary: A soft laugh escapes Lena’s lips, and something weird happens at the pit of Kara’s stomach. She places her palm over the area and frowns. She did have four less muffins for breakfast this morning. Maybe she’s hungry again.“It’s nice to meet you, Kara.”Kara is really happy that Alex has found her soulmate in Lena. Really.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 15
Kudos: 495





	Numbers

_Let our numbers lead you to your soulmate._

Black letters splash across the billboard under a picture of two very attractive women hugging each other, and Kara thinks that at least the company has the mind to be inclusive. Still, the claim is quite a peculiar one. How do numbers lead you to your soulmate? What exactly is a soulmate? She continues staring at the advertisement in question like the answer will miraculously come to her. 

Seconds later, she’s drawn from her reverie when the first drop of rain lands on her glasses. She wipes at it with the sleeve of her sweater. Please don’t start raining now. Cat Grant’s coffee and breakfast sit untouched, un-spilled, and most importantly, low fat in her hands. Glancing up at the sky, Kara prays to whatever deity there is that the rain doesn’t come down on her before she gets back to the office. There’s not a discrete place close by for her to change into her disguise. And the only thing worse than getting fired over a cup of rolled oats is getting fired for coming back looking like a wet rat with a cup of rolled oats.

“Need a hand?” Someone holds an umbrella over her head, and Kara turns around to greet her savior. “Alex! What are you doing here?”

Her sister lets out a chuckle and pokes her nose. “Keeping you dry, apparently.”

“Well, yes, that’s…thank you. But what I meant was, aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“I’m taking the day off.” 

Exactly when does Alex ever take the day off? Kara chews at her bottom lip in quiet contemplation again. Today is full of hard to answer questions.

“Earth to Kara.” A hand waves in front of her face, and she blinks, reminding herself not to zone out during conversations so often. Alex points to the contents in her hands. “Doesn’t the Queen require her breakfast soon?”

Right. Cat Grant. Her demanding boss with absurd dietary restrictions is waiting on her return.

A few feet away, someone clears their throat, and Kara almost thinks it’s Cat eavesdropping on their conversation. But the woman would never grace such plebeians on the street with her presence.

“Hi, Lena. I didn’t see you there. Did I forget something at the cafe?” Alex apparently knows this woman named Lena, who is, Kara thinks, by Krypton and Earth’s standards very pretty. 

“You left your scarf.” Lena offers the item out to her sister, and if Kara isn’t mistaken, there’s a slight blush on Alex’s face when she goes to accept it. Kara stares, wide-eyed. Is Alex…interested in women?

When her sister idles there with her thumbs tucked into the pockets of her pants, forgetting to introduce her, Lena clears her throat.

“Oh, sorry, I’m being rude. This is my sister, Kara.” 

A soft laugh escapes Lena’s lips, and something weird happens at the pit of Kara’s stomach. She places her palm over the area and frowns. She did have four less muffins for breakfast this morning. Maybe she’s hungry again.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kara.” 

There’s a bit of new information about her sister to digest, but the instinctive thing for Kara to do is to support Alex, so she takes Lena’s hand and smiles brightly at her. “Likewise.” 

Something flickers in Lena’s green eyes, but it’s fleeting. She opens her mouth to say something else before the shocked expression on Kara’s face stops her. 

“Oh! Cat’s breakfast! I have to go! Sorry!” Kara lets go of Lena’s hand and scurries into the drizzling rain. The coffee’s probably lukewarm by now. Cat’s going to kill her. Turning back around one last time, she calls out to Alex and her maybe female date/girlfriend/companion. “It was nice to meet you, Lena!” The raindrops dotting her glasses make it difficult to see, so that’s the only reason why her eyes linger on Lena for a few more seconds.

—

The next day, the rain clears out over National City, and by some miracle, Kara continues to still be employed. Although, if Cat wanted to fire someone, Kiera would be the first one to go, not her. She takes those things as matters for celebration, so Alex is the first person she calls over to share her popcorn with. 

At some point during their evening, Alex’s behavior starts to change. “So…Lena.” 

Kara stops stuffing the popcorn into her mouth and looks over at her sister’s twitching form on the couch. She hears that the coming-out process is a stressful one on Earth. Hopefully, Alex knows that she will love her no matter what. 

“She’s…my soulmate.”

“What?” Her glasses slide an inch down her face when her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Pushing them back up with a butter-less finger, Kara tries to quickly correct herself, hoping that her reaction didn’t scare Alex off. “I mean, I support you, Alex. I think it’s great that you’re being honest with yourself and with me. It’s just that…you’re telling me that she’s your soulmate.” Kara is trying really hard to not make it seem like she’s wearing a giant question mark over her head despite her utter confusion about the matter. When did Alex believe in soulmates?

“I know, just listen.” Kara can see the growing blush creeping up her cheeks. “Have you ever heard of the system?”

“Jail?”

Alex snorts. “No, not jail. The system that finds your soulmate.”

It’s then that Kara’s mind goes to the ad she’d seen yesterday. “The dating service?”

“It’s not a dating service. It’s…it’s more like a government program that helps you find your soulmate.”

Kara nods, trying to keep up. “Right. How?”

“Remember what happened to divorce rates in National City two year ago?”

She vaguely remembers hearing about how the government was trying to curtail divorce rates after it reached a seventy year high. 

“They asked Lena to build a program that could essentially map a person’s soulmate with the information that they have in their database.”

“I’m trying to understand how that is any different from a dating website, Alex. Why are we calling this a soulmate search?”

“Dating websites only use the information that you’re willing to provide them, and that information is cursory at best. Plus, anyone can make up information about themselves to appear eligible. The information the government has on each person is extensive…and accurate. Lena, who has one of the brightest minds in National City, was approached to build this program that they believe will bring soulmates together.”

Kara cringes at the idea that someone or something is keeping tabs on her. “That’s….creepy. And it’s an invasion of privacy to use people’s information like that.”

“Our information is already out there Kara. We are merely telling the government if we want them to leverage it in a way that they think can help us. You can only find your soulmate if both parties consent to the search. Meaning, I would only know who my soulmate is if my soulmate is also looking for me in the system. Otherwise, you just stay in the void waiting for your soulmate to come along. So, it is similar to a dating site in the sense that both parties have to agree to seek each other out.” 

“So you and Lena…found out about each other because you both wanted to.”

“More or less.” 

“I….that’s a hard concept for me to wrap my head around, Alex, and I’m an alien.” She rubs the back of her neck and wonders how someone would even go about building such a thing. “So you believe that you are in love with her?”

Alex leans back into the couch and considers the question seriously. “Not yet. But I think I will be.”

“And Lena feels the same way?”

Alex smiles. “Since I’ll be bringing her around more often, you’ll to have to ask her.”

—

Lena does come around more often, as promised. And Kara can’t say that she’s particularly against the idea when Lena turns out to be the best human being Kara’s ever met on planet Earth. She’s easily the most intelligent person in any room, exceedingly kind even though she doesn’t like to think so, and is prettier than most of the women to walk through Catco’s doors. It only makes sense for her to be Alex’s soulmate. There’s no one better than Lena.

“Have I lost you, Kara?”

She blinks away her thoughts momentarily. “No. Okay, maybe a little.” 

Lena leans in and pushes Kara’s glasses up her face for the second time tonight. “You have to get these tightened or they’ll fall off your face without you knowing.”

“Right,” she grins. Kara’s been putting that task off for a while now because she likes the way Lena--

“As I was saying, the algorithm that I used to build the program is a pretty sophisticated one that marries the most advanced AI technology we have and hard statistics.”

“So you…do believe that you and Alex are meant to be together?”

“Of course, the numbers don’t lie.” Lena says it with such conviction that anyone would be hard pressed not to believe her. So why does Kara feel…weird about the whole thing? Maybe even a little disappointed, if she’s being honest with herself. Since that night Alex told her about the system, she’s learned that more than half of the people she knows have already made their soulmate search and are either waiting for the other person to initiate their search or are happily matched. Kara would be lying if she says that she’s not at least a little intrigued by the idea. But…as she looks back at Lena, wonderful Lena who’s already found her soulmate, a sort of anxiety overrides her curiosity about being matched with someone who might not be as great. Or being matched with a seven foot tall ax-wielding murderer. Surely, Supergirl can handle him, but that would be somewhat of an inconvenience in their lives. Speaking of which, she’s not even sure she would even be fairly matched in the system. After all, she’s one-half Kara and one-half Supergirl, and the government doesn’t care enough, or know enough, to map out soulmates for aliens when they’ve gone to great lengths to strip them of their basic rights.

“Do you think my soulmate is in the system?” Kara asks, despite her own misgivings. A flicker of surprise crosses Lena’s pretty features, and she quickly tries to mask it with a smile. 

“I…I don’t know.” Kara doesn’t understand the reason for Lena’s sudden interest in the glass of wine in her hand, but she’s now staring really hard at it. After a moment, she returns her gaze back to Kara. “Probably. I can’t say for sure, and I am not allowed to go snooping around that information. I built it so that only the two people who are meant to be together will know.” 

“So you’re telling me that the person at the call center handling questions about this can’t see the maps either?”

Lena laughs. “No. And not even the team of engineers the government employed to maintain the system. All for the best.”

“Hmmm…”

“Hmmm, indeed,” Lena parrots, and a wicked smile draws at her lips. Kara can’t help but grin at the woman who’s entered their lives just mere months ago and enriched it so. 

“What?”

“Nothing.” 

They stay on the couch like that for the next few hours until Kara feels the pull of sleep through every fiber of her body. As she starts to drift away into a comfortable slumber with Lena’s head perched on her lap, Kara thinks about their budding friendship. About how happy Lena makes Alex. About how she’s going to tell her about Supergirl. 

\--

When Kara is waken from her sleep, it’s to the smell of lilacs, a scent she’s come to associate with Lena. 

“Wake up, sleeping beauty.” 

“Ten more minems…” She nuzzles her face deeper into a couch pillow, refusing to even let the apocalypse draw her out of the best sleep she’s ever had in a long time. She hears Alex’s voice in the background. 

“That pillow is going to have drool all over it tomorrow morning.” 

Kara’s then comforted by the sound of Lena’s soft laugh. 

“Maybe we should try to get her to her room. She’s going to wake up with a crick in her neck if she sleeps on the couch all night.”

“You’re right. It’s also pretty late…you can sleep in my bed if you want…I can share a bed with Kara.” 

Kara wonders if she’s dreaming this conversation, but the voices sound so close to be a dream. If it isn’t a dream, then why are Alex and Lena being so awkward with each other?

“No, it’s fine. I should go home. You should shower though. You’re starting to smell. I’ll try to lug her into the room myself.” 

After a short silence followed by the sound of water running somewhere, Kara feels a hand on her shoulder.

“Kara, you have to wake up.” 

“Mmm, Lena?”

“C’mon, you can’t sleep here all night.” 

An arm slips around her waist and shoulder, nudging her off the couch. Obligingly, she moves, though her limbs feel kind of noodle-y at the moment. 

“You’re heavier than you look, Kara Danvers.” 

“Pst! Pssstttt!” She manages a few steps before totally giving up. Lena squeals when Kara’s full weight falls into her arms. 

“Kara, you have to actually move your feet. I can’t drag you to your room like a corpse.” 

This causes Kara to pout. “But you’re comfortable. I like you.”

With their bodies pressed firmly together in a pseudo embrace, Kara can feel the low rumble in Lena’s chest when she laughs. “I like you too, silly.” 

Kara doesn’t know why but the words make her a little sad. And she says the first thing that comes to her mind. “Why couldn’t you be my soulmate?”

She can hear the exact moment Lena holds her breath before exhaling again. “The numbers don’t lie, Kara.” 

“Then make them lie. I want you as my soulmate.” There’s a desperation in her voice that can be plucked out from the drowsiness. A strange prickle of tears in her eyes.

“I-I can’t. And you don’t know what you’re saying. You’re going to wake up tomorrow morning and forget about this conversation.”

“You-” Kara lets her chin fall on Lena’s shoulder. It’s too much effort to keep her head up at this point. “You are the prettiest girl on any planet. I liked you from the very moment I first heard you laugh.”

“Kara-”

The sound of running water suddenly stops, and Lena’s body straightens like she’s just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. 

“Have you managed to get the log to her bedroom?” Alex’s voice echos somewhere down the hall.

“I—no.” 

Kara slumps again despite Lena’s best efforts. A few feet away, she hears Alex’s low chuckle.

“Lena, what in the world have you done to our poor Kara?”

“I’m…not sure.”

—  
The next morning, Kara wakes with no recollection of how she got into her bedroom. Has she been sleep-flying again?

“Morning, sunshine.” Alex is at her bedside with a mug of coffee and dressed for work. “There are four stacks of pancakes waiting out there for you. Remind me to buy more mix the next time I go to the store.”

“Where’s Lena?” Kara asks like that’s a totally legitimate response to pancakes. She doesn’t even know why that’s the first question to come out of her mouth.

“She went home last night after I got back.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” Alex busies with the sleeves of her button-up while Kara pushes herself up in bed.

“What time is it?”

“Five-thirty.”

“Isn’t that early even for you?”

“Yes. But the boss just called about some pesky time travelers. I have to go in to interrogate them.” 

Time travelers? Things just get stranger around here each day. 

—  
It seems Kara isn’t too far off in her initial assessment about the strange happenings of National City. The time travelers that Alex was called in to interrogate continue to stick around despite the DOE’s best efforts to get them back to their own time. And there is a particular Sara Lance that Alex keeps complaining about. 

“She is the absolute worst.” 

“What did she do today?”

Lena and Kara share a knowing look as Alex continue to list the number of _narcissistic and wildly inappropriate things_ the blonde Sara Lance did today. Kara only knows about the blonde part because Alex commented on her fake barbie doll hair color several times. 

“And you know what else she said me? She told me that I was arrogant!” 

Somewhere in the living room, Alex’s phone rings, and she leaves to retrieve it. Kara’s eyes follow her sister’s disappearing form out of the kitchen. When she hears a door close somewhere in the house, indicating that Alex won’t be returning anytime soon, she looks back at Lena with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, she’s just been busy lately. The time travelers have been a thorn in her side since day one of their arrival.” 

To her surprise, Lena doesn’t seem upset at all. “It’s fine. We decided that we both needed a break.” 

“A…break?”

Lena picks up the piece of salmon sushi with her chopsticks without missing a beat. “Yes. An intermission in our relationship, if you will.” 

So it’s only temporary. Kara shakes her head, not knowing how to feel about this new piece of information. 

“Is everything okay?” She asks out of genuine concern. 

“Yes. I think so. We just need some time and space to…sort out some issues.” 

Naturally, Kara’s hand tries to find Lena’s in an attempt to offer her some comfort. But the second Lena notices Kara reaching across the bar, she retreats like a scared animal spotting its predator in the corner. “Don’t. Don’t do that.” She walks to the sink, putting some distance between herself and Kara, and squeezes her eyes shut.

Kara blinks back her own tears at seeing Lena in such obvious distress. “Lena, what’s wrong? You can talk to me.” 

“Kara, I don’t think we can be friends anymore.” 

“What? Why? Is it because of Alex? Because your temporary breakup doesn’t have to change things between us. We can still be friends. And I can--”

“No, it’s because of the feelings you have for me.” 

Lena finally looks back at Kara, and there’s sympathy in her eyes. In that moment, Kara could only wish that a giant black hole would appear in the kitchen to swallow her up. Because she’s been harboring a one-sided crush on her sister’s girlfriend, and she’s now being called out on it. “I-”

“I’m sorry.” Lena is the first to apologize, and she looks so stricken with guilt that Kara almost forgets about her own pain.

“How did you know?” She manages to ask.

Lena’s eyes dart around the kitchen as if the answer might be tucked inside a cupboard somewhere. “A feeling.” 

“A feeling,” Kara repeats. Her eyes flit back to Lena and it finally hit her how much she wishes Lena was her soulmate. Oh, god. Without a word, she runs out of the kitchen.

—

Kara doesn’t see Alex or Lena for a week after that. During that time, she accumulates a total of seventeen voice messages. Sixteen are from Alex and one from Lena. And Kara feels too ashamed to listen to any of them. So she lays in bed in the evening staring at the picture of an envelope on her screen and frowns. 

She thinks about her sister and curses herself for wanting her girlfriend. She thinks about Lena and curses herself for ruining their friendship. Rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palms, she wonders when things will go back to normal. When will she get over her stupid feelings for Lena? And then it hit her. 

She runs to the living room to find her laptop. After a series of clicks, the browser asks her to accept the agreement that she’s going to allow the system to map her to her soulmate. It makes her emotional.

Kara’s already reasoned that the mapping would probably be wrong because the government doesn’t have her alien information. But she’s desperate to correct her mistakes where it comes to Alex and Lena. If she can be matched to a soulmate on Earth, then everyone will be happy. She hovers her cursor over the button and almost clicks ‘Submit’ until a knock arrives at her door. Kara nearly falls out of her seat in panic. 

“Coming!”

She flies to the door on instinct and allow her feet to settle onto the floor. Kara expects it to be the pizza delivery guy with her six orders of pizza, so it surprises her when she finds Lena standing there. 

“Hi.” 

“Uh, hi.” 

As usual, Lena is immaculate in her business attire. And Kara is in sweats and an over-sized shirt. To make matters worse, she hasn’t washed her hair in three days, and it’s tied up in a messy ponytail. 

“You haven’t returned my call.” Lena’s tone is not accusatory at all. If Kara has to describe it in one word, she would say hurt. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know…” She searches for an answer other than the one that’s been keeping her from returning Alex’s calls. “I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me.” 

Lena cringes as though mortified by the memory of their last conversation. “I…I always want to hear from you. I’m sorry I said those words.” She looks around the hallway awkwardly because Kara hasn’t thought about inviting her in yet. 

“Oh, sorry! Would you like to come in?”

She nods and steps into the apartment. 

“Would you like something to drink?”

“No, I—” Immediately, her eyes lock on the bright computer screen sitting on Kara’s desk, and Kara yelps. She doesn’t know why that’s her first reaction, but it’s effective in drawing Lena’s attention away from the thing on her computer. 

Lena blinks at Kara. Under other circumstances, Kara would have bowled over in laughter. 

“Were you about to search for your soulmate?” She says after enough time has passed.

“I…yes.” 

Lena looks down and chews her lip nervously. Her lipstick’s now a faded shade of rouge like she’s been doing that the entire car ride over. 

“Alex and I broke up.” 

A terrible knot twists in Kara’s stomach, but she doesn’t know how to respond to the old piece of information otherwise. The last time she had this discussion with Lena, they played ring around the kitchen bar until someone made a dash for the door. 

“What I mean is that we’re broken up for good,” she clarifies. 

“What?”

Lena nods, holding Kara’s gaze.

“I’m…sorry.” Kara furrows her eyebrows together. Things are never going to go back to normal at this rate. 

“Are you?”

“I…” Kara feels her cheeks grow pink at the question. Would she be a terrible sister if she answers ‘No’? But Lena has made it clear that those were her feelings all along. 

“Be with me, ” the words come out as barely a whisper. And Lena has a growing blush that likely matches Kara’s. “I’m sorry for what I said and how I reacted. The truth is that I spent years building this program. And I had to believe in it first before I asked everyone else to. The algorithms. The numbers. Everything added up.” Then, her eyes lock with Kara’s. “Until it didn’t.”

Something like hope springs into Kara’s chest. “Lena, I’m Supergirl.” She winces the second she realizes that those words just slipped out without preamble. 

“That is—that’s a lot to dissect.” Lena’s expression turns to something like a deer caught in the headlights, and Kara wishes that she could have been more tactful. But this is a leap that she’s just now decided she’s going to take, so she’s just going to roll with it.

“I know! But Lena, look, please listen. We can have the discussion about how it is a little crazy and how I should have told you about Supergirl later, but for now, can we focus on this soulmate thing? What if you programmed my alien information in? Maybe the program will-” Kara gestures wildly with her hands when the technical lingo fails her. She hasn’t been this excited in a while. Wait until Alex hears about—

“Wait, what about Alex?”

“We decided that it was for the best. I think she might be off in some different universe chasing a very blonde time traveler that she’s suddenly realized isn’t so annoying after all. Has she not told you?” Oh. That might explain the sixteen messages. 

“I might have been in hiding.” 

“I see.” 

“So you don’t think Alex is your soulmate anymore?”

“I think Alex’s soulmate might be someone else entirely if my program accounted for different universes,” she smiles fondly.

“So will you program my alien information into the algorithm to see if we will match?” Kara asks shyly. 

Lena walks over to the laptop on the desk and stares at the screen for a few seconds before closing it shut. When she returns her gaze back to Kara, she’s smiling tenderly at her. “No, I don’t really have much interest in what the numbers say. I’d like to trust my instinct this time around.” 


End file.
